Thank you, Karl Fisch

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This semester I taught the College’s School and Society class to our preservice teachers. This foundations course acquaints students with the historical, philosophical, sociological, and political aspects of K-12 education. I took the opportunity in our next-to-last class to talk about educating elementary and secondary students for their future. In their end-of-course reflections, a number of my students commented about Karl’s video:

• What impacted me the most throughout the entire semester was the seven-minute clip we watched last week called Did You Know?
• I have looked at the Did You Know? PowerPoint presentation several times, and I can not help but be amazed. I have showed it to many of my friends and everyone gives the same reaction. I keep asking myself as a math teacher, “How can I best prepare my students for their futures?”
• I was so inspired by this video that I e-mailed it to several friends and posted it on both my Facebook and MySpace pages.

I also received a number of comments such as the following:

• After [Scott’s December 5 lecture], I got into my friend’s car and couldn’t stop raving about the lecture I had just received. It was one of the best lectures I have ever been to in my college career.

Bottom line: the message about ‘School 2.0’ resonates with future teachers. They use technology, they understand the potential. Let’s try not to let reality disappoint them too much as they enter the K-12 workforce?

Thanks, Karl, for a wonderful resource for the rest of us. When I said we should be making resources that make a difference, this is exactly the kind of thing I meant.